1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to touchscreen systems and, more particularly, but without limitation, pointers for touchscreen systems.
2. Background Information and Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, users interface with the desktop and operating system of their computer system using a "mouse". Typically, the mouse has one or more push buttons on its top and a roller on its bottom designed to roll along a surface next to the computer system. When the user moves the mouse's roller on the surface, a mouse pointer positioned on the computer system's display tracks the movement of the mouse's roller. When the user has positioned the pointer at a desirable location, such as over an object, the user clicks or multiple clicks, depending on how the mouse is programmed, one of the mouse push buttons to invoke or open the object.
Conventional mice suffer certain disadvantages and limitations. For example, mice are bulky, fixed in size so that very small hands or very large hands alike do not properly fit over the mice, not permanently attached to the computer system, subject to corrosion, and require the user to know the specific mouse behavior (e.g., which mouse button and how many clicks invoke a function). Accordingly, many customer oriented systems (e.g., ATM machines) and multi-user systems do not use mice. Rather, the trend for multi-user systems is to use touchscreens.
Conventional touchscreens allow the user's finger or a stylus, collectively referred to as "selection device", to replace the conventional mouse and mouse cursor. Conventional touchscreens utilize, for example, heat sensitive, sound sensitive, pressure sensitive, or motion sensitive grids/detectors to detect a hand, finger, or object placed on the touchscreen. Using current touchscreen technology, a user can initiate the display of a large pull down menu by touching the touchscreen, and then selecting an object within that large menu by dragging a finger down the menu.
However, conventional selection devices for touchscreens suffer certain limitations and disadvantages. Unlike a mouse cursor, fingers vary in size. Therefore, the desktop must place contiguous object icons and text far apart to accommodate sensing of the largest fingers. This presents a problem when the touchscreen is restricted in size. Further, some computer systems, such as laptops, only accommodate a touchpad, not a large touchscreen. A touchpad is a very small touchscreen used to manipulate objects and text displayed on a separate conventional display screen. To do so, the user positions one or more fingers on the touchpad to manipulate a conventional mouse cursor on the display screen. However, it is difficult to control and manipulate the position and placement of the mouse cursor using the touchpad.
There would be great demand for a new selection device for touchscreen technology that allows object icons and text to be placed close to one another, requires minimal space to perform functions on those object icons and text, and does not require the use of a mouse cursor.